: Chapter 6

I press my lips to the top of my nephew’s downy-soft head and inhale his unique scent. I had no idea how magical he would be or how the smell of tiny human plus baby powder would combine to turn me to mush. I’ve never had any interest in kids, either in producing my own or fawning over anybody else’s, but I would give my last breath to make this chunky little guy laugh.

He curls his fingers in my beard and grins at me, a globule of drool rolling down his chin. I swipe it away with the tip of my thumb, and he squeals with delight. Maybe that’s part of it—it’s so damn easy to make them laugh, to make them happy. It’s sad to think that he’ll eventually be as fucked up as the rest of us.

Or maybe not, I think, as my sister-in-law walks over. Maybe he’ll be the perfect blend of Melanie’s selfless and sunny disposition and my older brother’s drive and ambition. “Let me take him from you, Drake. He needs his nap,” Mel says, giving me a warm smile. Her cheeks are flushed pink, her hair slightly mussed.

Nathan steps up behind her with a bottle of merlot in his hand. “Do you want me to take him, corazón?”

She smiles sweetly at him, and I swear he melts into a puddle before my eyes. It’s like when the Wicked Witch of the West gets doused in water. He’s so pussy-whipped these days—not that I blame him. Mel is great, and she makes him happier than I’ve ever seen him. That’s no easy feat given the charmed life Nathan already led before he met her.

He’s one of those guys that everything always came easy to—sports, school, work, women. He worked hard and played hard. Like the rest of us, he was devastated when we lost our mom, but he was the one who always seemed like he was treading a gilded path. I’ve always partially hero-worshipped him, even though he’s only a few years older than me. He’s the son our dad always saw as the one who would carry on the James family line, and I guess he was right. Luke is living proof of that.

“No,” his wife assures him. “You go have a drink with your brothers. I’ve got him. I think maybe I need my nap too.”

I’m pretty sure my older brother growls at that latter part, but I ignore him and reluctantly allow her to take the baby from my arms, but not without a final kiss on his head. “See you later, little guy.” He gurgles and waves his chubby fists at me.

I spent the first four months of my nephew’s life living in Chicago, but now I’m back in New York where I belong. I have a lot of uncle time to make up for, and I intend to enjoy every sweet minute of it.

The noise in the den is comforting, reminding me of much happier times when we all lived here and Mom was still with us. For a while after she passed, our family home felt like a prison to me, every room a reminder of what we lost, the scent of her perfume still seeming to linger in every hallway. It was like the place was haunted, and we were all suffering. I’m glad to be back here, rebuilding, all the James boys together again—just like she would have wanted. As though he knows exactly what I’m thinking, Nathan gives my shoulder a comforting squeeze. “It’s been a while since we were all here for Sunday dinner, huh?”

The past three months have been a whirlwind of tying up loose ends on my old life in Chicago, so this is the first time I’ve made it home since shortly after Luke was born. An unexpected lump balls in my throat, and I swallow it down. “Yeah. She would’ve loved this.”

“She would have. I wish she’d been able to meet Mel, to hold Luke in her arms.” I see a sudden shine of tears in his eyes, and it freaks me out. Nathan James is not the kind of man who cries, for fuck’s sake.

He swipes the moisture away and gives me a sheepish grin. “Don’t you dare tell a living soul you just saw me crying at Sunday dinner. I’ll never hear the fucking end of it.”

“So I can’t tell everyone that becoming a dad has turned you into the kind of emotional sap you used to roll your eyes at, then?”

He punches me hard in the arm, turning it numb. I grunt, but I’m used to it. When you grow up with four brothers, someone is always walking around with a dead-arm. It’s brutal.

He jerks his head in the direction of our other three siblings who are huddled around the large oak coffee table our parents brought from their very first house in Spain. “We’d better get in there before Mase and Elijah drink all the good Scotch.”

I notice the familiar black label on the bottle. “Does Pop know they’ve nabbed some of his fifty-year-old Macallan?”

Nathan shrugs. “The old man is so happy to have us all under one roof, I’m sure he’d let us drink his cellar dry. Besides, he’s too busy prepping for dinner to be interested in what we’re doing right now.”

I can picture him in his I’m the boss apron, the one our mom bought for him shortly before she died. It brings a smile to my face and very nearly a tear to my eye. Only the fact that I just mocked Nathan for being a wuss holds it back. “Can’t believe he still hasn’t gotten himself a cook.”

“You know him. Too set in his ways. Besides, it keeps him out of trouble.”

He’s not wrong. Our dad built his tech company up into the multibillion-dollar global conglomerate that it is today, and he is an amazing man, but he hasn’t been the same since Mom died. It hit us all hard, but for him, it was like losing half of himself. He had a heart attack a while ago, and although he’s made a full recovery, it’s a worry. Dalton James is no frail granddad—he’s still a force to be reckoned with as he quickly approaches seventy—but he is one of the reasons I moved back. He won’t be around forever, as he likes to remind us on a regular basis.

Nathan walks across the room, and I follow him. Feels like I’ve spent a lot of my life following Nathan, and to be fair, he’s never steered me wrong. He persuaded me to go all in with him on the law firm, and that worked out—my work is the love of my life. My Melanie. He sits on one of the big, comfortable sofas, and I flop down next to him.

“So, what was her name?” Mason asks as soon as my ass touches the seat.

Should have known I could hide nothing from these four. “Whose name?” I feign ignorance anyway. It’s worth a shot, plus it’ll annoy the hell out of him.

Mason narrows his eyes, but they’re filled with amusement. “The girl you blew me off for last night. It better have been a girl anyway. If I find out you canceled on me for work again, dude …” He doesn’t finish the sentence, but the implicit threat hangs in the air. Another dead-arm lurks on the horizon.

It wouldn’t be the first time I canceled on one of them for work. My priorities have been clear since I was in my early twenties and everything else in my life went to shit. Work never lets me down. It never dies or walks out on me or makes me feel like crap about myself. Work is the best wife I could ever have, and out of all the James brothers, I’m the one who would be described as a workaholic. That’s saying something, considering how driven and ambitious they all are. Apart from Maddox, and he is a different story altogether. Our youngest brother is working his way through his own demons, and they would eat mine for breakfast.

My brothers are all looking at me, waiting for a reply. “Her name was, uh, Scarlet. It was a one-off. I won’t be seeing her again.”

“You blew me off for some girl you’re never going to see again? Dude.” Mason shakes his head. “It could at least have been someone special.”

“Someone special?” Elijah says, arching an eyebrow at him. “Since when did you start believing in that kind of romantic stuff?”

“Fuck you, bro,” Mason says. “I watch a lot of Netflix.”

Elijah hands me a glass, and I gratefully accept and take a sip, enjoying the smoky liquor warming my throat almost as much as I do the banter between my brothers. “I don’t do special,” I say, “and I never see any of them again.”

I wince because that’s not entirely true. I’ve been in Chicago for a long time, and as much as I love my family, they don’t really know an awful lot about my life there. They only see what I allow them to see, the curated version of my world. But now that I’m back in New York, maybe that needs to change. “Well, except for the girls I …” I lick the residual whisky from my lips, suddenly nervous. “The girls I hire.”

Elijah arches an eyebrow, surprise clear in his eyes. No judgment, though. “The girls you hire? Like hookers?”

I shake my head. “Not exactly. It’s a bit more nuanced than that. These are professional women from an exclusive company in Chicago. Women I had an ongoing arrangement with that suited us all.”

Elijah stares at me, bemused. “But why couldn’t you just meet women the old-fashioned way? You’re rich. You’re successful. You keep yourself well-groomed.”

I frown at him. “Well-groomed?”

Mason nudges Elijah in the ribs and smirks at me. “He means that, objectively, you’re hot.”

“I’m curious too, Drake,” Nathan adds. “I can’t imagine you’re short on offers.”

Damn. I’ve not only opened the whole can of worms; I’ve dumped them out in the middle of the room for everyone to poke at with a stick. It’s hard to explain because they’re right, I don’t lack offers. But I simply don’t have the time or patience for the sheer mundanity of dating. The mind-numbing small talk, the getting-to-know-you shit. The pretending-we’re-not-just-here-to-scratch-an-itch falseness of it all.

It’s all so fake, especially when I know that I’m not interested in an actual relationship. I like women, and I love sex, but I’m not the settling-down kind. Presenting myself as someone I’m not, only to get to the naked part of the evening? That’s not for me. My special arrangements are far more honest, and it certainly saves time—time I can spend working. “It’s just easier that way,” I explain. “More efficient. They get the job done, don’t ask questions or expect small talk. We all know how it works and what our roles are. Plus, they don’t have any objections to the rope marks.”

Nathan sputters, nearly spitting out his Scotch. “Rope marks? Just exactly what kind of kinky shit are you into?”

Maddox and I lock eyes. Although he’s always been open-minded, my youngest brother’s travels provided him with a depth that he didn’t have before, and that’s why he’s the only one I’ve discussed any of this with. He gives me a knowing look and answers for me. “It’s called Shibari. It’s a Japanese art form involving the aesthetics of bondage. The way the ropes create patterns on the skin, the contrast of textures … it’s not merely sexual. For some, it’s almost spiritual, and at the very least mindful.”

Huh. Mindful. Like coloring. There was something unbearably cute about watching that grown-up and completely gorgeous woman playing with crayons last night.

Maddox grins at me and holds his coffee mug aloft in salute. I offer him a smile of appreciation for his description of my “kinky shit” and raise my glass in acknowledgment. He’s right. There is something about the practice of shaping and tying the ropes that relaxes me and brings me to a calm place. I don’t practice it often, but when I’m stressed or strung out, it’s the quickest way to get out of my own head. The women I deal with are professional and experienced, and everybody benefits from the arrangement.

“Well, it sounds like a lot of work to me.” Mason smirks. “What happened to good old-fashioned handcuffs?”

Maddox rolls his eyes. “It’s like comparing apples and oranges, asshole. Shibari is actually quite sensual.”

“I bet it’s not the way Drake does it.” Mason chuckles and takes a sip of his Scotch.

“Kinky fucker,” Nathan mutters. “Spiritual, my ass. You’re just a grade-A pervert, bro.”

Elijah and Mason snort a laugh, and I shake my head. Every time the five of us get together, we revert back to teenagers, no matter how old we get. It’s juvenile, but I love it. I’ve fucking missed this while living in Chicago, and I only recently realized how much.

I punch Nathan on the arm, partly because he’s the one sitting closest to me, partly because I owe him one. Out of all my brothers, he’s the one I’ve always had the biggest rivalry and the most in common with. Out of all of them, I expect him to have my back, or at least to try to understand. “Don’t judge just because you’re married now and don’t get to do any kinky shit.”

He tilts his head and grins at me, his dark eyes twinkling with mischief and the effects of the Scotch. “Pretty sure I get more action than anyone else sitting in this room.”

“Yeah, right.” Mason snorts. “Sure, bro. Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“Or keeps me up all night,” Nathan replies smugly.

Mason leans back in his chair, a perplexed expression on his face. “There’s no way you get more action than me. I mean, you’re married with a kid, and I’m …” Our younger brother licks his lips like he’s searching for the appropriate word.

Nathan rests his forearms on his knees. “You’re?”

“A man whore?” Elijah offers helpfully.

Mason arches an eyebrow, a cocky smile curving his lips. “I’m … well, I’m a busy guy. I have at least three dates a week.”

Nathan sits up straight, rolling up his sleeves. His expression turns serious, and I bite back a grin. I’ve seen this side of him plenty of times before, and it’s a joy to watch. It’s exactly the same way he looks in the courtroom when he’s about to destroy the prosecution. Mason is set to be schooled by the Iceman himself. “Let’s be generous, Mase, and say four dates a week. Even if you score every single time⁠—”

“Which I do,” Mason chimes in.

Nathan nods, sucking on his top lip and eyeing our brother across the table. “Okay. Accepted. So, accounting for downtime and knowing what I do about you and how eager you are to get them out the door as soon as the deed is done …”

“Harsh, bro,” Mason says with a barking laugh. He doesn’t argue, though, because we all know it’s true.

“I’m gonna say maximum you get laid is eight times. On a good week.”

Elijah whistles and leans back in his chair. “Lucky bastard. Some of us haven’t been laid eight times in the last year.” I wish I could say I was surprised by my oldest brother’s admission, but unfortunately, his marriage looks nothing like Nathan’s.

A cocksure grin spreads across Mason’s face, and he’s obviously delighted with his stats. It’s adorable that he actually thinks he’s won. Nathan shoots me a conspiratorial glance. “You want to close this one for me, counselor?”

I roll my eyes before fixing them on Mason’s expectant face. “You must know why you get so much uncle time with Luke on a Sunday, right?” This is my first Sunday dinner in a while, but I’ve already figured out the score. One nephew and four doting uncles, not to mention a besotted grandfather.

Mason frowns. “Because we’re the best fucking uncles in the world.”

I can see Nathan smirking from the corner of my eye. I place my hand over Mason’s and squeeze. “Surely you’re not naive enough to believe it actually took Nathan and Mel a full twenty minutes to choose the wine for tonight’s dinner, bro?”

It takes him a few seconds, but realization dawns on his face. His jaw drops, and he looks from me to Nathan. “You—” His attention comes back to me, then returns to the happiest fucker in the room. “In the fucking wine cellar? Really?”

Nathan offers him a casual shrug. “Like I didn’t catch you and that pretentious soap actor down there the Thanksgiving before last?”

Mason scoffs. “Exactly! Now I’ll never be able to go down there again.”

“You mean go down in there again?” I can’t help but tease him.

“Not that I like to brag”—Nathan makes a show of checking his watch—“but I’ve already had sex more times this weekend than you do in one of your good weeks, Mase. At home. In the car on the way over here. In my room upstairs. In the tub. And yeah, in the fucking wine cellar. Thanks for the childcare, by the way.”

“Fucking married people,” Mason mutters. “It’s not a fair comparison.”

“Not all of us are so fortunate.” Elijah sighs and downs the rest of his Scotch. “I’m here to skew the averages back to normal.”

“That’s because you’re married to Amber the Ice Queen,” Mason replies, grimacing. “Man, that woman would freeze your dick off with a glance.”

Elijah glares at him. “You don’t have to like my wife, Mason, but you do have to respect her. I’m allowed to complain about my love life. You’re not.”

“Besides,” I say, jumping in to head off this potential flare-up, “Amber isn’t as icy as you think, Mase. Her not liking you doesn’t make her a bitch. It just makes her a good judge of character.”

Everyone laughs at that, even Mason. He’s quick to rouse but equally quick to forgive.

Maddox pours himself a coffee from the cafetière on the table. “Anyway, let’s not turn this into a dick-swinging competition. We all know I’d win.”

Mason barks out another laugh. “Says the guy who gets laid even less than Elijah.”

“My celibacy is a choice, nutsack,” Maddox quips, dodging the balled-up napkin Mason tosses at his head. “I never strike out, so therefore my stats are perfect.”

I take another sip of my drink, savoring the warm buzz of alcohol and the even warmer feeling of being surrounded by my brothers again. It’s been too long since we’ve all been in the same room, trading barbs and inside jokes like no time has passed at all. My relationships with these guys aren’t perfect, but they’re the best family a guy could ask for.

“So, Drake.” Mason leans forward, a glint in his eye. “Let’s get back to where we started. You blew me off last night. You at least owe me some of the details—tell us more. How did you meet her?”

I open my mouth to reply, then shut it again. Really, what’s to tell? I don’t even know her last name, where she lives, or any identifying information about her. She should be instantly forgettable, simply another pleasant night of mutually satisfying sex.

Truth is, I remember way too much about her. I remember how her pussy tastes and can still almost feel her silky cum on my tongue. How wet and tight she was as I slid my cock inside her and the sexy sounds she made when she came. How my name sounded on her lips, like she had no control over it at all.

Even worse, I remember other things—things from before I got her naked. Her laugh. The sorrow hidden behind her smile. The way her eyes sparkled when she talked about her friends and her mom. How she called me out over breakfast. She was the perfect combination of sweet and sassy, and even thinking about her is distracting. I should have gotten her number, should have asked to see her again. Except I’m me—I don’t do relationships and I don’t break my own rules. So instead, I went cold on her as soon as we finished fucking and bundled her off on her way. Handed her over to Constantine like she was nothing but a package I needed delivered. That’s the other thing I remember. The way she looked at me as she left, draped in that creased bridesmaid’s dress. She was disappointed in me, and I hated it.

My brothers stare at me, anticipating my response. And I guess it’s my fault I didn’t shut them down completely. I didn’t tell Mason to go fuck himself. I allowed her into the conversation, into my mind. Maybe I actually want to talk about her. Hell, maybe it will chase her away if I do. “Well, if you really must know …”

“Oh, we must,” Nathan interjects, his grin widening.

I clear my throat. “I kind of stumbled into this wedding. Purely by accident, of course.”

Mason shakes his head, amused. “How the fuck do you stumble into a wedding, bro?”

I lean back in my chair, a wry smile playing on my lips. “Well, it’s a long story, but let’s just say it involved the finest steak I’ve ever eaten, a good tux, and an open bar.”

Elijah snorts. “Steak and top-shelf liquor, should have known.”

“Anyway,” I continue, ignoring his comment. “That’s where I met her. I saw her from the doorway, sitting alone, and I just knew I had to go speak to her. Can’t explain it, just felt the pull, you know? There was this reception table where guests were supposed to sign in and there were name tags, which I thought was weird because it was a wedding, not a corporate retreat. But I grabbed one and went right in.”

“Who were you?” Maddox asks, immediately homing in on something I hoped to avoid.

I narrow my eyes at him. “Charlie.”

“Yeah, but Charlie what?” He grins at me, and I wonder if he somehow learned to read minds at some Buddhist retreat in Nepal or whatever the fuck.

“Charlie Cockburn-Cummings, all right?”

Howls of laughter break out around the room, and I have to join in. It is, after all, fucking funny.

“I’m not surprised he wasn’t there,” Elijah says, his lips twitching in a smirk. “He was probably too embarrassed.”

“Yeah, I think I met him once in line at the clap clinic!” Mason adds between guffaws. “He needed some cream for his cock burn.”

Maddox tries to stay calm and maintain his zen, but eventually he cracks too. “Maybe he was English,” he adds. “Nobody would bat an eyelid at that kind of name in England. When I was there, I met a dude called Nathaniel Gildenballs, I kid you not. Anyway, carry on, Drake. Charlie. Whoever. You crashed a wedding and picked up a one-night stand?”

That’s about the size of it. “Yeah. I mean, I kind of knew the couple—Tucker McDaid, who I think works for the Attorney General’s office, and Emily Gregor? She looked familiar too.”

“I know Emily,” Elijah says. “You’ve all kind of met her, or at least been in the same room as her. She sits on some of the same charity boards as Amber. She’s one of those women I know without really knowing.” He shrugs. “I’m guessing it was a pretty good wedding party?”

“It was, if you like that kind of thing. The main attraction for me was this girl, though. She was in the wedding party, still wearing this purple dress that was clearly uncomfortable. Seriously, it looked like she wanted to crawl out of her skin. So I took my Scotch and sat next to her, and …” I find myself lost in the memory for a moment.

“And?” Maddox prompts, leaning forward, his interest piqued. I’m not surprised. I never talk like this. I never feel like this. What the fuck is this?

I shake my head, snapping myself back to the present. “And we ended up talking for hours. We danced a little. Then we found ourselves in one of the gardens behind the hotel. One thing led to another, and …”

“And you tied her up with a conveniently placed garden hose?” Nathan suggests with a falsely innocent expression.

I roll my eyes. “Quit with the fucking rope jokes, asshole. Don’t make me regret telling you about that. No, we just … connected. And yeah, I know, I’m the one who sounds like I watch too much Netflix now. She came back to my room, and that’s as much as you pervs are getting.”

My brothers exchange glances, clearly taken aback by my uncharacteristic sentimentality. By my standards, that was like a declaration of love.

“So, you actually talked to her before you banged her?” Mason asks, his tone less teasing now and more genuinely curious instead. “Did she stay the night in your suite, or did you kick her out the minute you shot your load?”

Fuck. I probably should have done the latter. “Yeah, we talked, and yeah, she spent the night. And no, I’m not giving you any more details.”

“Bro, she sounds great. Seriously, why didn’t you get her number?” Mason asks, frowning.

“What makes you think I didn’t?”

“Your fucking face, man. You’re trying to play it cool, but the way you’re talking about her … It’s like you know you’ll never see her again.”

I shrug, trying to act unconcerned even though he’s one hundred percent right. “You know me. I don’t do relationships. It was just a one-night deal, that’s all.” But even as I say the words, I can feel something gnawing at my gut. Regret, maybe? Something I don’t recognize, anyway. Something I’m not sure I like.

How the hell did Amelia manage to get under my skin like this after only one night? No other woman has ever had this effect on me, and I have no fucking idea what to do about it.